The Top Floor Flat

There was not much that could have seen us up with the dawn, blearily admiring the architecture of the inside of Paddington rail station first thing in the morning after our busy day at Windsor aside from a day trip to Bath. Both my mother and I had selected Bath as our little city break of choice while she was visiting the UK – she for the architecture and fond memories of a little trip while she had lived here before and me for its literary and historical heritage and ties to Jane Austen. It was less than two hours on the train but we were off to a grim start as the clear skies from the day before had darkened and as we pulled out of Paddington rain began to join us for the journey.

While my mother dozed and I worried about the weather, we escaped London (and the London Marathon which was also on that day) and travelled into the gorgeous English countryside. By the time we arrived in Bath, we were both feeling a little better – her with a rest and me with the clearer skies and both with the 2-for-1 coupons that came along with our Great Western Rail tickets. We were quick to take advantage of those by signing up for the open-top bus tour, a great option in Bath as there were two different routes, both of which included with our ticket – one that took us around the outskirts of the city and one that took us through the city itself.

We began with the city outskirts and our bus driver escorted us up into the high hills around Bath which sits in a low valley. At the top of Claverton Down we had an absolutely stunning view of the city stretched out below. What was most impressive was the city sprawl compared to the historic city centre of the Roman era – but despite the urban modern growth, all of the buildings still used a facade of Bath stone, giving the entire city a uniform look and feel. Our bus tour continued around past Prior Park, a massive mansion nearly a mile long and built near the original Bath stone quarries. Unfortunately we couldn’t get too close to the house as it’s now a boarding school, but our glimpses through the trees were impressive enough.

We next opted for the city open top bus tour which gave us a bit more of the local history. We passed the Roman Baths, the Jane Austen museum, the Royal Crescent and learned about the Roman, Regency and modern history of the area. While it was all very interesting, the story of the city took second place in the queue for our attention when compared to the amazing architecture of the city.

After our two bus tours, we had a quick break for a delicious lunch at authentic Nepalese restaurant Yak Yeti Yak before visiting the first attraction – the Roman Baths. The Baths are some of the best preserved Roman architecture and historical sites in the UK and built on top of the hot springs that bubble up from below the earth’s surface. The Romans believed the space was sacred and offered a portal to a deity however this did not stop them from taking advantage of the leisure activities that a hot spring provided. While one pool remained untouched, a sacred place of worship, metres away the Romans had built a massive leisure centre, amazingly advanced for the first century AD, which featured hot and cold pools, a sauna and steam room, and communal areas for relaxation and wellbeing.

The Romans, and later the English during the Regency period, believed that ‘taking the waters,’ that is, drinking directly from the hot springs, could cure any illness and although it’s not recommended to drink directly from the springs today, the restaurant at the Roman Baths offered a filtered version for visitors to taste. While my mother refused, I gulped down the whole, slightly sulphuric-tasting, glass – that should cover doctor’s visits for the next year or so!

After the Baths, we headed north to the Fashion Museum, a place where we were hoping to find Regency era costumes but what turned out to be more of a local homage to modern fashion. It was a small museum and actually quite enjoyable despite not being quite what we expected. There were a few historic fashion touches, however, and I got to indulge my desire for whalebone corsets and hoop skirts to make a comeback with a dress up area for adults.

It was getting quite late in the day and it didn’t look like we would have time to properly appreciate the Jane Austen museum (and I was slightly loathe to bring my mother inside, horrified after she repeatedly referred to it as the Emily Dickinson Museum) but couldn’t bring myself to bypass the monument to the authoress completely. Instead of the museum (and let’s be honest, there probably wasn’t much I didn’t already know), we headed to the top floor of the building to the Jane Austen Regency Tea Rooms where some Bath Buns, tea and the late afternoon sunlight were the perfect break in our afternoon.

It was a Sunday so the shops were already closed but this turned out to be a blessing in disguise – we walked down to the Pulteney Bridge, an amazing bit of architecture where the bridge was built to include shops on either side of the road, and south along the river. In the sun (the rain now long forgotten) and with the stunning buildings, flowers and local beauty, we really couldn’t have been happier.

A calm dinner featuring French flavours and a bottle of wine at the Brasserie Gerard wrapped up the day before the short walk back to the train station and the ride back to London. While we had a busy day of London history ahead of us, our day trip to Bath was the perfect Sunday activity and we both enjoyed the day immensely.

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On my last day in Cornwall, I found myself with a seemingly endless stretch of sunny day before my evening train back to London and no plans with which to fill it. At a bit of a loss for what to do - there being little useful public transport, having checked out of my hotel and not being familiar with the area - I decided to walk the half mile or so to Charlestown, just next to St. Austell where I had been staying.

The first evening in Cornwall I had walked to Charlestown so had seen the one street, few shops and, most impressively, the gorgeous bay and working docks where a couple of full pirate-like sailboats were still docked. This, however, was not a brisk walk along the ocean, this was a full seven hours to fill so I busied myself with finding something to do.

Being drawn to museums, I decided to investigate the wonderfully named Shipwreck, Rescue and Heritage Centre, a small museum built into the clay mines and loading tunnels from Charlestown’s still existing china clay trade. Let’s see, how can I possibly describe the Shipwreck, Rescue and Heritage Centre?

The museum was a kitschy cross between a middle school poster project, an antique shop and Disneyland in the 70s. In fact, nothing in the museum (artifacts aside as of course they were expected to be old) could be more recent than 1989 including the quarter of an hour welcome video that described the clay mining history of Charlestown; and the importance of the dock to the few families that populated Charlestown’s handful of streets. Featuring 80s swimwear, hairdos and turns of phrase, it was a perfect segue into the winding corridors of animatronic rooms depicting olden day Charlestown life, a vast amount of history on the numerous shipwrecks that took place off the Charlestown and Cornwall coast, artifacts from these wrecks and - the most modern part of the museum - a 2009 Royal Navy recruitment video.

View from one of the china clay loading tunnels at the Charlestown Shipwreck, Rescue and Heritage Centre

I have to say, I was completely entranced and ended up spending almost two hours reading the history of local shipping trade and rescue teams. I’m not sure what it was that captured my imagination about this local attraction (perhaps I it was the wooden pirate statue out front holding a sign “fun for dads, mums AND kids!”) but I think the Centre will live on in popularity accompanied by those American roadside attractions such as “World’s Biggest Plastic Dinosaur,” “Amazing Stream that Runs Uphill” and “Mystical Rock Garden” where parents know, at the very least, after hours of listening to a child beg to visit the overbilled attraction there will be a shop selling ice cream bars at the end.

The rest of my day in Charlestown was spent enjoying the local delicacy, a Cornish pasty, at the Atishoo Gallery Cafe; a long wander down the short dock and stretch of beach; and a delicious Easter chocolate cake at Charlie’s Coffee Shop. Amazingly I had filled my day quite happily and Charlestown is not only gorgeous but full of some of the most friendly people I’ve encountered in the UK. Maybe it’s local pride at their lovely Heritage Centre.

Steak and stilton Cornish pasty from the Gallery Cafe in Charlestown, Cornwall

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I am just a few hours away from the one week marker for my return to the UK.  Aside from a string of particularly sleepy evenings, the jet lag really hasn’t affected me too badly and I’m starting to feel like I’m back in the swing of things, and certainly not like I’ve been away for ten weeks!

In order to further facilitate my acquaintance with the city of London, however, I decided to take advantage of the uncharacteristically good weather and walk the 3 miles or so to Exhibition Road in South Kensington.  This area is home to some of London’s, in fact the world’s, most impressive museums including the Natural History Museum, the Science Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum.  It was warm enough that I was perfectly comfortable in a long-sleeved tee-shirt and vest but when I got there I realised I hadn’t really decided which museum I wanted to explore today.  Finally, after weighing my options (the V&A has my favourite exhibits, the Natural History is my favourite building and I hadn’t been in the Science before) I decided to try something new and check out the Science Museum which is currently hosting a number of temporary exhibitions I’d heard good things about.

I had forgotten how crowded the area could get on a Saturday and while it was nothing compared to how overrun the place will be in the summer months, I definitely had to do my fair share of child-dodging.  Fortunately, the exhibitions that most interested me didn’t seem to be the main destination for the family groups so I quickly found myself in some of the more deserted parts of the museum.  I first made my way to the Future Foods exhibit which described highlights of the debate regarding genetically modified (GM) food.  Nothing particularly new or noteworthy but there was a virtual interactive bit where I got to pick and choose genes with which to genetically modify a tomato, including one from a blueberry to turn my tomato blue.

Next, I headed upstairs to the special exhibit Dan Dare and the Birth of High Tech Britain.  Dan Dare was a newspaper comic character born at the end of the second world war that flew around the planets in his spaceship, making use of such modern marvels as penicillin, nuclear energy, and lead-lined refrigerators.  The Dan Dare part of the exhibition was really a frame for a look at the technologies that Britain developed immediately following WWII but overall I thought it was a really fun and informative set up.

Finally, I made my way to the top floors of the museum to explore the permenate exhibits on loan from the Wellcome Collection, a museum a few miles away inspired by pharmacist, entrepreneur, philanthropist and collector, Sir Henry Wellcome, that reflects his vision to create a space where people could come to learn more about the development of medicine.  At the Science Museum, the entire history of medicine is laid out in chronological order with implements, artistic renderings and information about each period.  The whole thing was absolutely filled with fun and interesting facts.  Think of your barber.  Have a good picture in mind? Now imagine them doing any of your necessary surgical procedures as well.  Until the 18th century, physicians were much more highly regarded than surgeons, who often were only minimally trained and doubled as barbers.

In addition to the history of medicine, the Wellcome Collection donations also included several miniature and life-size replicas of various medicine-related scenes (some more gruesome than others).  From an ancient citizen suffering eye surgery while tied to a chair to ease the surgeon’s job, to the poor conditions of amputation in the WWI trenches to modern day open heart surgery, it was a very impressive setup.

After my afternoon at the museum, I made my way back to my neighbourhood of Olympia and for the first time, spent some time exploring the streets around my own.  Imagine my shock when I discovered, not two blocks away, a local park (complete with public tennis courts), a giant supermarket, half a dozen cute restaurants and pubs, a Catholic church and a girl’s school as well as countless other shops and cafes! I’m definitely going to need to spend more time exploring the area around the Top Floor Flat in the coming weeks but in the meantime, I think the jetlag is starting to kick back in, so unless I get a second wind and head out for a screening of Watchmen at the nearby movie theatre, tonight is going to be another low key, London night.

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Right, well, we’re going to start moving through this Paris trip at a bit of an increased pace – mostly because I’ve got so many other things to talk about that have happened in the last three days (for a stay-at-home weekend, this weekend became incredibly busy!).

Wednesday in Paris was the unofficial Museum Day. I spent most of the day at the Louvre which, according to my tour guide the day before houses so much artwork that should you attempt to view each piece for 25 seconds, you would spend a total of six months in the museums (by which time they would have changed or added an exhibit and you’d have to start over). Opting for the three hour tour over the six month one, I followed the audio guide through French artistic and architectural history. One of the most stunning parts of the tour was the Napoleonic chambers. While Napoleon himself never lived there, they were decorated in a style associated with his rule and were private residences as recent as a few decades ago. The opulence and glamour was stunning.

I was also, of course, impressed by some of the early Northern Renaissance art which I had studies in school and saw on the tour. Before leaving I did make my way to the hideously crowded Italian masters wing where I got to glimpse Da Vinci’s work, including the Mona Lisa, and the works of the rest of the crowd who got Ninja Turtles named after them. Now I am as much in awe of these great works as the next art history dabbler but it was a little off putting to see them along with so many tourists who effectively viewed the entire exhibit hall through the lens of a camera, snapping pictures just to say they had.

Wednesday afternoon brought me to the Picasso museum which was small but very impressive. I think it’s surprising for many people just how much of a range Picasso had – he’s so often associated with the post-impressionism and cubist paintings from somewhat later in his life but he worked over such a long period of time and in so many different medias (there were a number of his sculptures on display as well) that it’s impossible to characterise his work by that style.

Having already spent a good deal of time on my feet, I grabbed some food to take back to the hotel and had an early night in anticipation of Versailles the next day.

Versailles was indescribable – I had been looking forward to this part of my trip perhaps most of all and it definitely didn’t disappoint. After the simple train ride from Paris to the chateau (about 40 minutes) I started off with the tour of the actual palace, including the famous Hall of Mirrors. This turned out to be a good move because even though the tourist crowds had been relatively light throughout my trip, Versailles turned out to be particularly crowded and even just after opening I found myself shuffling through the gorgeous rooms with huge groups of people.

After the palace I wandered out into the gardens and towards Marie Antoinette’s private areas (which included the working farm where she was said to enjoy pretending to be a milk maid). The entire thing was exquisite and what was particularly nice was that as I moved farther away from the main palace, the crowds thinned out and finally I found myself walking for up to half an hour at a time through the gardens without seeing another person. I actually ended up almost completely lost and turned around (not exactly a laughing matter on the huge estate) but couldn’t be much bothered as I kept coming across new gardens, grottos hidden behind fountains, paths to new buildings and more. It was near the middle of the afternoon and when I was the most lost that I happened upon an open building labeled the theatre. Inside was the most beautiful miniature theatre (probably just a few dozen seats) but with a full stage and set. I can’t even imagine living a life like the one the inhabitants of Versailles must have had and am glad I planned to spend the entire day there so I could truly explore the area.

When I arrived back in Paris, I was quite tired but happened to notice as I was walking back to the hotel that my museum pass (which I had purchased for Wednesday and Thursday as it included Versailles) included a tour up the Notre Dame tower which offered an amazing view of the city. I was very glad that I found that as it offered a completely different look at the city than from the Eiffel Tower.

On Friday morning, I got up early to beat the crowds to that famous tower but the weather wasn’t really cooperating. It seemed a bit misty and overcast at ground level but by the time I had made it to the second platform on the tower (about 1/3 of the way up) I realised that misty at ground level is proper rain and high winds when you’re very high up. Of course I went to the top of the tower, and admired the view from the open air platform but couldn’t take the weather for long so after not too long returned to the second platform for a hot coffee and then walked the stairs all the way to the ground.

After the tower, my plan had been to continue through the art museums but realised I was right next to the Hôtel des Invalides, which was a hospital established by Napoleon for veterans and soldiers which still acts as a veterans hospital today. It also houses the tomb and remains of Napoleon and has a wonderful war history museum that explores French and European history. After the tour of Napoleon’s tomb, I wandered into the World Wars I and II exhibitions and ended up spending nearly two hours going through the truly fascinating exhibit.

For my final afternoon and last morning in Paris on Friday and Saturday, I wandered back through the areas of the city that I had become most familiar with; specifically the islands, Rue de Rivoli which is the main road that runs next to the Louvre and Champs Elysees and the Tuileries park in front of the Louvre. Before leaving Paris I made one final stop at Angelina’s for hot chocolate and brunch before heading back to London on the Eurostar.

Of course I couldn’t end my trip without one final bit of drama, however. I had been waiting nearly an hour in the train station waiting for information about my train, which just wasn’t coming up. Finally, with only 15 minutes to go until the train was supposed to leave the station, I realised something was wrong – in fact I was in the wrong place and had to get through baggage check and customs, and make the train in 15 minutes. Thankfully I made it on board with approximately 30 seconds to spare (I was still making my way to my seat when the train left the station).

Over all it was a fantastic trip. I’ve learned about a lot of places I’d like to visit when I return to Paris in the future but for a first pass of the city, I think I did quite well. Enjoy the pictures, but don’t think things are going to be boring now that I’m back in London and not travelling for a while. Just wait until you hear what I did this weekend….

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Alright, this should, in theory, be the last post of extreme Doctor Who geekitude for quite some time (seeing as the show is over and I’ve now done… well, this.)

Today I went to the Doctor Who Exhibition at one of the main exhibition centre here in the city. I guess they actually have Doctor Who Exhibitions on a fairly regular basis, both in London and around the UK, because it’s so popular, but this was a particularly big one and had all of the props from the new series. They’re the actual props from the show too, as well as a lot of actual costumes, which was really exciting.

I’m not going to post all of the pictures here because they’re on my facebook account here if you really care and most of them are of monsters or characters that are unique to the show so it wouldn’t mean much if you haven’t seen it. Here are some pictures of me, though.

This is me in front of the TARDIS (in the show, The Doctor travels in a space and time travel machine called the TARDIS which stands for Time and Relative Dimension in Space. It is supposed to be able to change shape so that it matches with its surroundings but it got stuck as a 1950s police call box, and is the most iconic image from the show. It’s bigger on the inside.)

This is me next to the Face of Boe, a super awesome character of highly enigmatic proportions. He also may or may not be a three million year old version of one of the show’s most awesome characters, Captain Jack.

And… this is me next to a cyberman - a metallic, emotionless, soulless thing that used to be a human but now wants to kill me. I escaped.

Finally, below is a video of one of the exhibits - the exhibit of the ultimate, can’t get any worse, end of the world villains who reoccur throughout the show. They’re called the Daleks and they’re terrifying.

Doctor Who has a sort of tradition of appealing to adults and children, but the adults watch it on the sofa and the children hide behind the sofa because of the scary monsters. This was true with the original series (which ran from 1963 to 1989) and today with the new series (which has been running since 2005). In the little shop (they had a little shop, I love it when they have a shop) it was quite cute - there was a dad showing his young son the merchandise and he said, “why don’t you get a Dalek shirt? Then you can really show that you’re not afraid of the Daleks!” to which the son replied, “but I AM scared of the Daleks!!” Good call kid. Anything that runs around yelling ‘Exterminate’ is bad news.

Alright, that about sums up my incredibly geeky day. I managed to salvage my dignity by going to a super posh area of town with Mimi for sushi, dessert and window shopping and tomorrow I’m having proper afternoon tea with Vori, a lovely girl who I’ve met once before as she’s a friend of Debbi’s. Hopefully tomorrow I’ll also get a bit of shopping in as I think at they office they’re beginning to wonder why I only have three outfits.

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Whew, what a weekend! It’s right late and I’ve got to get up early for work so I’m keeping this short(-ish).

Saturday, I headed out early to get to the Tate Modern as it was opening. I allowed myself about 40 min for the journey, way more than was necessary. What I didn’t count on was being stunned speechless by the amazing Millennium Bridge which crosses from St. Pauls on the one side of the Thames to the Tate Modern on the other. It was absolutely gorgeous and I was about halfway across (a process which had already taken me a good ten minute as I was oogling the view) when I realized that sitting right next to the Tate on the opposite side of the river was the Globe Theatre (of Shakespearian fame) and I nearly fell in I was so exited! I had forgotten it was in the area and suddenly there it was in all of its Elizabethan glory.

I spent a lovely morning at the Tate Modern, which had some absolutely stunning Picassos, Matisses, Kalinskys and Pollacks to name just a few. I was there quite a bit longer than I had planned because there was so much to see, and I didn’t even go into the paid exhibits as there were over two floors of free show rooms.

After I had exhausted the Tate, I wandered over to the Globe and was so excited to be there that, on a whim, I bought tickets for a Sunday night performance of The Merry Wives of Windsor, a play of which I knew the basic plot but not the details (it’s one of the relatively few plays I haven’t read by Shakespeare!). I got some poor touring couple to take my picture in front of the iconic building and wandered off towards the Tower of London (where the lines were too long and prices too steep for me to even consider going in) and caught a train up to Camden Town, already excited for my Globe experience the next night.

Camden Market is a huge sprawling outdoor market of stalls that sell everything you could possibly imagine, from clothes to shoes to food to accessories to musical instruments to fob watches (Beth, if you’re reading this, I was *so* close to getting a fob watch, but it had some naff picture of Big Ben on one side!) to toys… it was unbelievable, and I only saw a small part of the market. I bought a pair of trainers which I desperately needed and a backpack, then made my way back home to watch my Saturday night fill of Doctor Who (which didn’t remotely fill. In fact it was a total cliffhanger ending as it was the penultimate episode of the season).

Sunday was an incredibly lazy day - I cleaned house, relaxed, did some writing, and took it easy before heading off in the evening to see my play at the Globe. It was FANTASTIC! I can’t even describe what fun it was. I was there with some of the most brilliant audience members who really knew their Shakespeare, and the actors were wonderful! I was roaring with laughter the entire time, as was the rest of the crowd. The way it works is there are seats (expensive) or you can stand in the ground level, in front of the stage, where you would have stood in the Elizabethan era if you were fairly poor but wanted to see a play (hey! like me!). I was right in the middle of the action as the stage literally wrapped around where I was standing. It was so much fun, and I was grinning all the way home.

Tomorrow starts another busy work week, but hopefully I’ll have time for a few social things! Hope everyone stateside is doing well!

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Whew… so I’ve dropped the journal ball, haven’t I?  Let’s see if I can get a bit caught up.

This last weekend was fantastic.  I was thinking about going out to Bath but I decided that after such a crazy three weeks, it would probably be a good idea to relax at home, get familiar with the neighborhood and do some things around London.  In the end it was a great choice because the plan to go to Bath and the nearby Stonehenge would have been instantly scrapped once I realized that it was Summer Solstace weekend and about ten million hippies and wiccans were going to be doing scary pagan things at Stonehenge.

Instead, on Saturday, I went to the National Portrait Gallery and saw Phantom of the Opera.  Oh wow.  Alright, so first off, the National Portrait Gallery was stunning in itself.  It’s a fabulous building and has, as one might expect, absurd numbers of portraits from every historic style and era all the way up through modern day (there were paintings of Middle Age saints and the pop celebrity who was in yesterday’s gossip rag).  But by far the most impressive to me was the only surviving portrait of the Brontes.  I’m a bit of a Bronte fanatic (Charlotte Bronte write Jane Eyre, among other novels; Emily wrote Wuthering Heights and Anne wrote The Tenant of Wildfell Hall and Agnes Grey) and it was so overwhelming to see this portrait.  Their brother, Branwell, painted it and it’s very basic but it was found, years after they all had died, in the closet of the second wife of Charlotte’s husband.  It’s still got the creases from where it was folded up for all that time.

Then I went to the theater where I had gotten last minute tickets for Phantom, which I hadn’t seen since I was 7.  I got the cheapest tickets, and I was seriously in the nosebleed section - I mean, I was a football field’s length away from the stage at least and about 30 metres above it.  I was a little nervous about how it would be but as soon as the play started I forgot how far away I was… that is one of the most stunning musicals of all time in my opinion.  It’s sexy and gorgeous and funny and sad and I absolutely loved it.  Because I hadn’t seen it since I was young, I had forgotten, or never properly understood, a lot of it and I really enjoyed seeing it again.

On Sunday, I took a very slow day to relax and enjoy being in my flat.  My flatmate Ann and I spent a lot of time together just chatting and then she had to go babysit for some family friends and I took a long walk around the neighborhood and good some household supplies I needed.  Unfortunately, the day was a bit of a disaster overall.  I managed to have my debit card frozen (you know… they were fine when I was withdrawing money from an ATM, or shopping at convenience stores but when I bought a bedspread and a mirror, that’s when they decided something was fishy.  I did tell them I was *moving* to England!); destroy 1/3 of my clothing by changing it’s color in the laundry; lose our curtain by leaving the window open during a really high wind; and was forced to throw out a bunch of food that had gone bad.  Oh well, it’s a learning experience and I can’t say I was that upset about it because… well, it’s hard to be upset about anything really since I’m enjoying myself so much.

This is my first full week of work.  Things have been a bit slow the last few days as I have to wait until the new version of the site is live sometime this week before I can start properly promoting it, but I really like the people and it’s been fun getting to know all of the London events scene.  My commute into work is a bit of a trip - I walk about 10 min to the underground station, I take the underground for about half an hour to 40 min, I come out in the downtown financial district of the city where I catch a bus which takes about 15-20 min to get me right to my office.  The bit on the bus is gorgeous and at some point I’ll need to take pictures of the route.  That reminds me that I still need to put pictures from the last few weeks… eek!

Alright, well, I think I’ve been at least partially redeemed for my lack of updates and hopefully I’ll have a chance to post again before this weekend!

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This has been a weekend of museums! Oxford seems to be full of them and, best of all, most of them are free or very inexpensive for students (shh, don’t tell, I’m still using my Colby ID card because it doesn’t have my graduation date printed). On Sunday morning, I took a tour of the Oxford Castle, a structure built in the early eleventh century and has been used as a prison since then (it just stopped housing prisoners in 1996 and at that point it was opened to the public for the first time). I took a tour that led us up to the top of the tower which over looked the whole city – clearly at one point in history it was used to keep an eye out for invading armies but yesterday it offered a great vantage of the Oxford business school to which I’ll be applying in a few years. We then went down into the crypt, supposedly the most haunted place in Oxford and got to view the old (and newer) jail cells. After that, I got to go on a special tour (they’re only running it a few months and only on the weekends) of a new area of the castle they’re just beginning to excavate.

After the castle tour, I went over to the Ashmolean museum, another Victorian style museum with a little of everything. It had some of the most eclectic collections I’ve ever seen including a wall of fob watches, a wing full of Egyptian artifacts, a room of porcelain painted plates, and a hall of master painters including Monet, Picasso, and Cézanne. I ended up spending a lot more time there than I expected and it was getting a bit late in the afternoon by the time I left to walk through Christ Church College (the Harry Potter college) but didn’t feel like paying the L5 entrance fee to go inside a few of the buildings so walked around the meadow and down to the water where there were hundreds of students enjoying the nice weather (the weather has been spectacular this weekend).

I was quite tired so after some more Indian food for dinner I had an early night getting ready to check out of my B&B and head back to London the next day.

Today, I started off by going back to the Oxford Museum of Natural History and Pitt-Rivers Museum again because I hadn’t really had time to view them properly when I visited the Friday before. I ended up spending the entire morning there and still felt like I hadn’t see most of what they had to offer. It was great! The Pitt-Rivers museum had an exhibit on body art and appearance and covered all styles of bodily adornment from all over the world. It was really interesting and they had some very unique artifacts.

After that, I had lunch with Mikki and Sophie, the girls who took care of me on my birthday, and we ate in this cute little coffeeshop in Gloucester Green Square. They’ve been so nice to spend so much time with me when they have finals this week! After lunch, I said goodbye to my new friends and headed to the Bate Collection of Musical Instruments which was such a strange little building! I thought it was going to be a proper museum but it was a side room off of the Oxford music buildings and I had to ring a bell to be let in. It was a fantastic collection, though, and there were some really beautiful old instruments.

Now, I’m back on the Oxford Tube, heading into London. I’m spending the night with my mom’s friend Mimi again but I really hope I have a place to live before the end of the week! I’m going to take this week to get settled with house and job for the next three months. Let’s see how that goes! Besides, there’s plenty of museums to keep me busy in London alone!

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What a fantastic last few days! I’ve done so much fun stuff that I’m going to try to bullet point the last few days so this doesn’t become another mile-long post.

- Got off bus in (gorgeous) city centre and walked the 1.5 miles over to my B&B (a task made more difficult by the giant backpacking backpack I had - I must have looked ridiculous!) and checked in, cleaned up and ditched my bags.
- Headed back into the city proper to explore, ended up walking around for over five hours and wow, this city is beautiful! I wandered through the old Bodleian library area (the library itself was closed but we could go in the courtyard) and saw the iconic Radcliffe Camera:

- Walked to the Science Library which had tons of scientific equipment from as far back as the thirteenth century. There were astrolabes, compasses, map making tools, clocks, microscopes, and really cool old medical equipment among the collection. It was pretty daunting to be in a building full of these things, over half of which were probably older than my country.
- Continued my walk through the city and found myself at the Museum of Natural History and the Pitt-Rivers Museum. The MoNH was fairly standard - dinos, bird replicas, stuffed animals, and had a lot of cool specimens however the really fantastic bit was the Pitt-Rivers museum. It was arranged like a traditional Victorian era collection hall with rows and rows and rows of shelves of international “curiosities” from all over the globe. They had everything from sewing needles to string instruments to shrunken heads. It was impossible to even get an idea of a small part of the collection because there was so much there. Hopefully I’ll swing back today or tomorrow to continue looking.
- Started to make my way back towards my B&B and cut through the Oxford park where I saw the large cricket pitch. If there’s a match on today I might try to watch for a bit, although I don’t have the slightest idea how cricket is played.
- Had an early dinner at an Indian restaurant and then crashed at about 9:30 and slept for 10 hours after my busy day!

Yesterday was my birthday (22! Yikes!) and I was perfectly prepared to spend it the same way as the day before, sort of exploring on my own (seriously, this whole trip is like, the world’s biggest birthday present) but I had the treat of meeting with Mikki and Sophie, two girls that my friend Laura met while studying abroad at Oxford and who had come to Colby to visit. I had spent they day with them when they visited at Colby and I was going to have morning coffee with them. They ended up showing me all around their college (Worcester) which was great because it’s exam time and most of the colleges are closed to public viewing and taking me on a tour up the tall church tower which was approximately three thousand steps up (alright, so like, 150) but at the top looked out over the whole city. It was amazing! I have tons of pictures which I’ll be uploading soon. I mentioned that it was my birthday and they really generously offered to make me a cake and celebrate with me that night! I let them get back to their studies and spent the rest of the day as follows:
- Went to the Botanical Gardens, which were stunning. They were first created to house plants used for medical experiments but now have plant species from all over the world in really nice gardens.
- Headed over to Christ Church college, one of the filming sites and set inspirations for Harry Potter but the college was closed to visitors so I couldn’t get in. Instead, I went in the picture gallery, a site on Christ Church that houses dozens of really fantastic Renaissance art from some incredibly important artists.
- Made my way to the Oxford Museum of Modern Art but it was closed while they set up a new exhibit - guess I’ll just have to come back to Oxford in a few weeks!
- Checked out some of the shopping areas, specifically looking for something cute to wear that night when I met Sophie and Mikki’s friends but gave up as by the mid afternoon, the crowds had gotten overwhelming!
- Headed back to the B&B for some relaxation and to get away from the crowds.
- Got an early dinner at a well reviewed sea food restaurant. My first Fish and Chips in Britain!
- Went back to the B&B for something I’d been looking forward to all week - Doctor Who!! I finally got to watch my first episode live and it was fantastic :). Had way too much fun watching and am really disappointed there are only four more episodes this season!
- Walked over to Mikki and Sophie’s college where they had made me a cake, complete with candles and had gathered their friends (who can resist free cake?). It was so much fun spending time with them, they were all so nice and friendly and we got along really well. After cake and Pims (the Oxford drink of choice apparently - consumed with lemonade and strawberries), we went to a traditional English pub where I got hard cider (a traditional English drink) and continued to make fun of one another’s countries until I had to catch the last bus back to my B&B.

Wow, so much for keeping this shorter! I’ll just have to start updating more frequently or doing less.

I think I’ll updated more :).

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